Academic Assessments

As the States develop content and academic achievement standards, they are then required to develop new assessments, or adjust their current assessments, to assure that they are aligned with the standards and include all public school students in the state. Assessments must be conducted annually and at least:

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 Test reading/language arts and mathematics for all public school students in grades 3 through 8;
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 Test in reading/language arts and math once in grades 10 through 12; and
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 Test in science at least once in grades 3 through 5, once in grades 6 through 9, and once in grades 10 through 12.

NCLB Required Assessments by Subject and Grade Level

NCLB requires that the design of a State’s assessment:
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 Be the same assessment system used to measure the achievement of all public school students in the state;
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 Provide coherent information about student attainment of state standards across grades and subjects;
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 Be valid and accessible for all students, including students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency (LEP);
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 Be valid, reliable and of adequate technical quality;
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 Involve multiple, up-to-date measures of student achievement, including measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding of challenging content;
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 Objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills without evaluating or assessing family beliefs and attitudes;
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 Produce individual student reports;
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 Enable itemized score analyses;
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 Enable results to be disaggregated (separated into sub-groups) within each State, school district and school by gender, each major ethnic and racial group, migrant status, students with disabilities, students with limited English proficiency (LEP), and economically disadvantaged students; and
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 Allow states to use an off-the-shelf criterion referenced test, a norm-referenced tests, or an augmented test which includes test items from both, as long as the assessment is aligned with the standards.